North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered troops along the heavily armed border with rival South Korea to be on high alert during a visit to the Demilitarized Zone, state media reported yesterday.
Kim’s visit to Panmunjom village, his first reported trip there since the death of his father, former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, in December last year comes amid escalating militaristic rhetoric aimed at US ally South Korea just days after Washington and Pyongyang agreed to a nuclear deal after years of deadlock.
Recent North Korean threats, including vows of a “sacred war” against Seoul over US-South Korean military drills, appear to be aimed at a domestic audience, analysts say, and could be an effort to bolster Kim Jong-un’s credentials as a military leader after showing off his diplomatic skills on the US nuclear deal.
Photo: AFP / KCNA / KNS
Still, the rhetoric keeps the region on edge and complicates diplomatic efforts to settle the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. North Korea has acted on its threats in the past. Violence in 2010 killed 50 South Koreans and led to fears of a broader conflict.
Yesterday, tens of thousands of North Koreans rallied in Pyongyang, vowing to topple South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who ended a no-strings-attached aid policy to the North when he took power in 2008, instead linking assistance to nuclear disarmament.
In rhetoric typical from the North, military chief Ri Yong-ho warned in a speech at Pyongyang’s main Kim Il-sung Square that the North Korean army would “sweep out” the South Korean traitors using their guns.
A crowd of soldiers and citizens later paraded through the plaza, pumping their fists and chanting: “Let’s kill Lee Myung-bak by tearing him to pieces.”
The threats are aimed internally as Kim Jong-un bolsters his power among the elite and military as the third generation of his family to lead the country, said Jeung Young-tae, an analyst with the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.
“It’s something that Kim Jong-un must do as the successor,” Jeung said. “The North did a similar thing when Kim Jong-il appeared as the new leader” in 1994 following the death of his father, North Korean founder Kim Il-sung.
North Korea accuses the US and South Korea of holding the joint military drills as preparation for a northward invasion. The allies’ military exercises began last week and are scheduled to end next month.
During his Panmunjom visit, Kim Jong-un told troops to “maintain the maximum alertness as they are standing in confrontation with the enemies at all times,” according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
On Saturday, a spokesman for North Korea’s National Defense Commission told a news conference that the US must halt the joint military drills if it is serious about peace on the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea calls the US-South Korean war games a threat to peace at a time when US and North Korean officials are holding talks aimed at improving relations.
The US and North Korea announced last week that Washington had agreed to provide 240,000 tonnes of food aid in exchange for a freeze of North Korea’s nuclear activities. A US envoy is scheduled to meet with North Korean officials in Beijing on Wednesday to discuss the distribution of food.
“Talks and military exercises are contradictory,” Major General Kwak Chol-hui, deputy director of the National Defense Commission’s Policy Department, told the news conference on Saturday. “If the US really stands for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, it should stop the aggression-oriented war rehearsal and revise the hostile policy toward the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea].”
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